The Patrician and the Serial Killer
by JabberwockySlayer
Summary: There was just one death he regretted having prevented, and there had been only one time he had been wrong. Another assassination attempt was smoothly failing, until the person he saved suddenly reappeared. And then everything went all pearshaped.
1. The Patrician

_Hello. I recently began to read the Terry Pratchett books and couldn't help but fall in love with them. I thought--"damn, this guy thinks almost exactly the same way _I_ do." It was incredible. I hope this does Mr. Pratchett's work even a slight amount of justice, though I have my doubts. Please, read, try to enjoy, and give me some advice, especially if my facts aren't correct._

_My thanks._

_**Hamlet II**_

_I own neither the characters, nor the world in which they live. _

**The Patrician and the Serial Killer**

**CHAPTER ONE: The Patrician**

Winter in Ankh-Morpork was a sore sight to see. The streets were crowded with hungry people, huddled together for lack of warm clothing. It was a mush of grey snow, mud the color of a latrine, and the black of wet cobble stones. The smoke from the chimneys curled up into the never ending charcoal sky that defined winter. The thick clouds held in all the heat, all the noise, the light, and worst of all the smell. A city of the size of Ankh-Morpork under siege from a perpetual winter storm, especially a city with the sewage system of Ankh-Morpork, quickly redefines the phrase 'smelling putrid'.

No one really liked the city in winter, but where was there to go? There was Uberwald, which had more severe blizzards and vampires, werewolves, dwarfs, igors...and then there was Klatch, which no one wanted to visit, even if they didn't know why. It just wasn't a place to go. You could, if you had half a mind, go even to the outskirts of Ankh-Morpork and at least there you would escape the clogged streets, the lack of food, and the aroma. Or perhaps maybe just the clogged streets and the aroma. No one had anything to eat there, which was the main deterrent. Of course, no one had much to eat in the city either.

Ankh-Morpork had been ruled, consecutively, for one hundred years by madmen. Normally this is a considerable drawback, but in Ankh-Morpork it was viewed as an exceptionally good thing. Only a lunatic would be able to consider ruling a city composed of every walk of life imaginable, though Darwin, and his marvellously inconvenient theory, made sure that it was _several_ lunatics ruling, rather than one. In the last century that Ankh-Morpork had prospered, it had gone through no less than twenty five dictators, most of whom were paranoid bureaucrats that didn't know their left foot from a door knob. However, the most recent head of state was insanely sane. It made Darwin incredibly pissed.

The Patrician of the greatest city on Disc was up late one night, tirelessly working. He often worked into the late hours of the night, and often through them into the next day, for weeks on end. As the Witching Hour melted with the dawn and the first crow of the cock, his office window could be seen through out the city as a faint, flickering glow at the top of the Palace. It was, in a strange and unexplainable way, a comfort to everyone who lived in the clogged streets amongst the filth and stalls. It was an assurance that somewhere above the disorderly, twisting streets of industrial Ankh-Morpork, someone was watching, and working to insure that the city lived to see the dawn come. 

The work the Patrician did was endless. It was a bottomless pit of paperwork that needed to be signed, revised, shredded, and sent out. The key to running a city smoothly was the paperwork. If there was copious amounts of paperwork, the likely-hood that a city as large as Ankh-Morpork would fail was greatly reduced. He knew that, and knew it well. If he happened to find an end to its infinite existence, he would _make_ more work. His first and foremost role in life was to ensure the success, but perhaps not the well being, of his city. With the precision of an Uberwald clock. (It is very important to note that this is not an Ankh-Morporkian clock. Those often tell no time at all...) Work kept his mind busy, and if there was one thing he despised more than the thought of all the other things he despised, was idleness. An idle mind is a dead mind, someone had told him once. It had been the only advice he had ever taken from another person, and it was, indeed, priceless. To sleep, he reminded himself sometimes as he lit a new candle, was to lack conscious thoughts, was to be idle, was therefore to be dead. The head of his city's police force, Sir Samuel Vimes, often joked that the only testament to the Patrician sleeping at all was the existence of a bedroom behind his office. Of course, the only time anyone had ever seen their ruler _in_ bed was when Vimes had put him there after an assassination attempt.

Assassination attempts happened all the time. Normally the perpetrators were sent by the Guild of Assassins, the only body of murderers that the Patrician would legally allow in his city. In fact, even the Guild of Thieves was unable to kill any of their victims, lest they wish to incur the horrible fine that would, inevitably, result. Cities as large as Ankh-Morpork are run with precision, and many, many laws. The Patrician was currently listed at a one million AM dollar bounty, which, even to the nobility of Ankh-Morpork, is a considerable lot. But so far, none of the would-be assassins had managed to kill him yet. He was still very, very alive.

But there was a little known reason for the continual failure. The Patrician had been trained at the very same Guild of Assassins from which they were sent. He was the best assassin the Guild had seen, far better than even Mr. Downey, the head of the Guild, and it was because of his finesse that he had nearly been ejected from the school. As a boy, he experimented, he tested, he conjectured, and he proved all his theories right every time. He seldom wore the black uniform of the assassin, instead choosing greys, browns, greens--with such clothes, he was able to turn himself invisible in the middle of a crowded street. He had all the patience of the world, and the quick mind of a scheming usurper. He had proved, time and time again, he had no match.

But they sportingly kept trying to kill him.

The Patrician refocused on the thick parchment book he had opened before him. His desk was frighteningly neat considering its constant use and flow of paperwork. All the piles, and there were not many, were alphabetized, categorized, cross indexed, and then prioritized. The system was such that anything immediately pressing, or urgent, inevitably found itself at the bottom of a very logical chain of 'to do' lists. There was a good chance that if infinity ever happened to end, the important documents would be at the end of it.

"Mr. Vetinari," came a low voice from one of the numerous shadows cast by the single tallow candle on the Patrician's desk, "it is inadvisable that you move." The Patrician looked up from his writing to where the voice came from, face impossibly expressionless. He dipped the long eagle quill he was holding in an ink well, and brushed the excess ink off. He began to write again. A knife buried itself in the back of the Patrician's chair, millimetres away from his sloping shoulders. "I _said_ not to move," the voice hissed. "Do pay attention, or next time I might not be as exact."

Vetinari sighed and reached for a narrow wine bottle that sat next to his ink well. He uncorked it with a fast twist of his wrist and poured the rich, red drink into a crystal wine glass, just to vex his attacker. Another knife was hurled at his hand as he set the wine bottle back. Vetinari caught it easily by the handle without even appearing to see it, set it on his desk, and picked up his glass, taking a well measured sip. He looked at the knife for, apparently, the first time. "I wonder," he whispered, eyes not leaving the knife, "if I may ask a question." He set his wine glass down without a sound and continued to write.

"You're the bloody Patrician," was his answer after a short pause. "I don't see why not."

"Not bloody just yet," Vetinari corrected meticulously. He stared straight into the darkness, eyes fixed on nothing. Besides the extensive library, an ancient marble chess board, and a large grandfather clock that could not tell any metered time, there was just shadow. Long drapes were closed across what looked to be a window the length of the wall. Vetinari appeared to be having a normal conversation, completely unfazed the other member was invisible. "To what do I owe this unexpected and," Vetinari glanced at the clock, "late visit, Mr. Rodez?"

"Umm..."

The Patrician's face was studiously emotionless. It's lack of all human identifying feelings was so complete, that had he not blinked, one would have assumed he'd fallen asleep with his eyes open. "My next inquiry," he continued stonily, "is one I'm sure you will be sincerely careful upon answering." His unseen attacker remained silent. "Have you ever contemplated the devastating effect a well thrown quill would have on the ability to function of your jugular vein?"

His assassin said nothing.

"Ah," Vetinari murmured, fingers arched together, his chin resting on his thumbs. "Yes, somehow I didn't think you'd had the opportunity." His quill twirled though his stagnant fingers, apparently by will of its own.

The minutes passed unrhythmatically. The quill floated through the Patrician's fingers, over under over under over under around, and blurred in the dim light. The shadows remained just as bereft of life as they had when the assassin had spoke. And suddenly, precisely as the unbalanced grandfather clock struck an unholy hour in the wee hours of the morning, Vetinari's quill came to rest between his index finger and thumb. A slow smile, one of the most frightening things to see on a serious man's face, lit upon his lips. "No doubt," he began softly, breaking the silence unpleasantly, "you have had difficulty fathoming the excruciating pain such a hit would, no doubt, incur." His black eyes gleamed under impressively dark eye brows in the dying candlelight. "Do be sure to take into account just how much that agony will escalate with every moment I keep you alive--as the protector of an entire city, I have become very apt in the art of preservation and resurrection. I could extend your torment indefinitely." He stood from his chair with such speed, a normal brain only registered him sitting then standing, his black robes were slow to hang around the new positing.

"Haven't said anything because I think you're full of shit, sir," said the voice. There was a silent scraping of metal unsheathing. "You couldn't kill me with a damn eagle feather when I've got another two knives and body armor." The air bent around the dagger hurled at the space in front of Vetinari's eyes.

The Patrician caught this by the handle as well, eyes growing fiercer. The quill was still lightly resting along his thumb. "No doubt," he mumbled submissively, eyes lowering. With careful examination one would have seen how fiery the downward-glancing eyes burned. "How foolish of me, to think I know my own potential."

The shadows didn't quite have an answer for that.

"Nonetheless," Vetinari continued, brushing the previous matter of assassination aside, "I believe now would be an excellent time to depart--your visit was of the utmost importance to me. Thank you for your time."

The assassin spat. "Can you only say one bloody line?" he jeered. "D'ya treat assassins and them government workers the same? We're all just run'o-the-muck do-gooders that waste your time? No wonder someone wanted you dead! Yer worse'n a king!"

"Ah, certainly. A king will bleed to death if you scratch him with a toothpick. What a nuisance I must be." Vetinari breathed deeply, picked up his wine glass, and twirled it expertly in his left hand. "You are free to leave."

"I'm an assassin!" the assassin explained desperately, confused to why this wasn't already perfectly clear. "I kill people; I didn't just come up here for a nice midnight chat." Vetinari saw the shadow of a boot pivot minutely. "I get hired to kill people."

Vetinari had barely seemed to move as he flicked the quill across the room and into the darkness. There was a grunt of pain, and a ebony figure peeled out of the shadows and into the faint candle light. "Let me address one or two of my concerns before I release you," the Patrician whispered, taking a fistful of the man's cloak. He patted the assassin down, quickly found the last knife, and flung it aside. "Were you a true assassin you would know two things I do not believe you are aware of. To be brief, one does not kill. One exhumes. Secondly, I cannot be disposed of. I am not aware of any citizen of Ankh-Morpork that has resource enough to pay the million dollar price for my life." The masked face stared back at him in pain and absolute confusion. Vetinari gripped the man's arm with a grip of steel and lightly removed an embedded quill from the back of the man's wrist. "As Patrician and protector of this city, I charge you with Inability to Follow Preordained Protocol, in the highest offence, justified by an unlawful attempt to avoid Guild proceedings." His cold voice, calm and overly collected, had made a sentence of utmost complexity sound as though it were a line in the Bard's poems. A death sentence had never been so eloquently dealt. "I could," Vetinari murmured, releasing the man, "be slightly more lenient if you were to reveal who hired you."

The assassin took an uncertain step away, glancing warily at his blood on the tip of the quill in the Patrician's fingers. "It was at a bar; I can't remember. I just know that I agreed to it and then the next morning a bag of gold and a note arrived at my flat."

"Pity." Vetinari's smile froze the air in the room.

"So," the assassin said hesitantly after a second's pause, "can I go now?"

The Patrician nodded once. "You can." His assassin, or would-be, sauntered to the door leading out of the Oblong Office and pulled on the handle. A bolt crashed against a lock, echoing in the otherwise silent room. The assassin glanced back at Vetinari, eyebrows furrowed. "But you _may_ not." Panic crossed the man's face. "You see," Vetinari explained, turning to face a bookshelf behind his desk, "you are an assassin, and I am a Patrician. You are paid to exhume, I do it out of the kindness of my heart, but only after I've considered the life that will be stolen." His eyes flickered over to his companion. "And I've thought this one over quite completely." The quill twirled again. "After all," he whispered, voice slicing through the icy air, "I am the Patrician."

Vetinari watched uninterestedly and poured himself more wine as the locked door was frantically tested again and again. Many times the desperate chose to leap bravely through the only window, behind the drapes, to their almost certain death. And those occasions, while brief moments of entertainment, merely meant he had to pay for a replacement for the window. There was an unpleasant THWACK as Vetinari stared ponderously at the dark drapes, a muffled scream of torment, a gasp of air, and silence.

All before Vetinari could turn around.


	2. The Serial Killer

**CHAPTER TWO: The Serial Killer**

Few people were faster than Vetinari. In fact, it could be said that _no _one was more agile, fluid, precise, dexterous, and so on, than Havelock Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. He was, by nature, the best. He was never beat, never bested. And someone had just murdered his assassin, and hadn't even been courteous enough to give him the opportunity to stare coldly into the man's eyes as he died. It was the simple things in life that, one, made you wish you were somewhere else and anyone else, but two, did wonders for your public image. Paperwork and image...

Vetinari, despite having complete control over every thought, muscle, and feeling of his body, was considerably relieved to see this new arrival's back turned to him as he fought to keep his surprise off his face. He pondered the figure over the brim of his glass, amused to see the uncommon colors of drab grey and musty brown as the primary hues in its clothing. He, as Vetinari guessed though the uniform he wore was loose and unrevealing, was crouched next to the body of late Mr. Rodez with one bare hand gripped firmly on the knife hilt buried in the man's back. Blood, deep red and glimmering in the low light, seeped across the wood floor like the Ankh's speediest crawl.

"Thought the whole quill had a very desirable effect," said the person as he stood, yanking his knife out of the body as he did so. Blood fountained up at the attacker as a feeble act of revenge. The man wiped his face clean with his shirt, and turned to Vetinari. "Funny how such an innocent looking thing could actually kill someone." The tone was conversational, not at all one expected from a person who had just slaughtered another. There was no hint of remorse, or indeed, any indication that the murderer knew of his horrible act. Vetinari saw this as slightly worrisome, though nothing to become over preoccupied with. But the dull grey eyes he encountered were a tad more unsettling.

"I suppose," the Patrician pondered as he stepped out from behind his desk to where the tall wine glass cabinet stood, "to ask you who you are would be exceedingly forward of me." He made a point of displaying his unprotected back to the person as he fetched another wine glass. The window for assassination he provided quickly came and went as Vetinari swivelled on a smooth heel, second crystal glass in hand. He surveyed this other person a moment more before reaching for the wine bottle on his desk. "May I entice you to some wine, miss?"

The woman shrugged and wiped her bloody hands on her robe before accepting the glass. She took a few large gulps of the wine, and made a face. "What's this, some posh ceremonial wine?"

The Patrician set the wine bottle aside, silently encouraging her to top her glass off, and sat at his desk. He stroked his trim beard pensively as he watched the unusual woman. She did precisely what he desired her to, and filled her wine glass. Though it may just be 'posh ceremonial wine', Vetinari was quite sure it would be able to knock any drunkard off his face. It had, by no small feat at all, taken considerable time to become used to it himself. Time, and a great lot of waking up with a tremendous head ache. Three minutes, he bet himself, she would either be out, or ready to tell him everything and anything he asked. What was a 'truth potion' after all, but strong alcohol? _In vino veritas_?

She continued as though he had answered her. "Thought so. You bureaucratic bastards never drink anything _real_. Can never find any rum, burgundy..." She trailed off, apparently woozy already. But seconds later, much less than a second in fact, her eyes were bright and she topped her empty glass off. "I'm from Vime's Low-Profile Police," she said primly, snapping to an impeccable salute. "The name is Terge Cortter." The wine glass was drained again, in one swallow Vetinari noted, and Cortter reached for the dwindling supply of wine again.

Vetinari's hand stopped hers, his eyes dancing malevolently in such a manner that suggested he would readily allow her to drown in her drink, but first there were some necessary questions. She recoiled from his hand, almost as though burnt. "I must apologize if I make the motion to, briefly, abandon the liquor." His answer was silence. But the person before him, the very curiously unseen woman, did not realize there was only one Lord of Silence, and that was Vetinari himself. No one could outlast his lack of words, and no one could possibly pay enough of a price for misused silence. Ankh-Morpork's ex-mimes could attest to that. 'Ex' very much in the same way a skeleton is 'ex'. All truth be told, many of the ex-mimes _were_ skeletons, hanging upside down in a large prison cell somewhere below the Palace. "Low-Profile Police," he breathed. "Charming. And for what reason has Sir Samuel requested your expertise?"

"Well," Cortter began, indicating the slain assassin behind her, "we knew there was gonna be a person trying to kill you, so he told us to watch you as...bodyguards." She set her empty glass on his desk with a 'chink'.

It was a moment before the Patrician spoke. "I see," he said, voice bereft of absolutely all emotion whatsoever. "In that case, as you are here for my protection, I request you sit." She sat in the chair opposite him, though Vetinari couldn't help but notice she inspected it first. "How much do you value life?" he asked innocently, apparently no motive behind the question.

Cortter stumbled in her chain of thought. "A lot...I mean...well...it's...hmmm," she finished, and paused to collect herself. There was a way she was able to reclaim all emotions and words that existed in her mouth that astounded Vetinari. He would have been, had he not been quite as attentive as he always was, unsure as to whether or not she had actually fumbled with her words. "Life's gotta happen," she finally whispered coolly, like a teenage thug with the brain power of a slug trying to answer a question in 'Maths: an Integral Approach'.

"No one can doubt the truth behind you words," he replied, steely blue eyes fixed on her, "but my question, and perhaps I wasn't quite clear enough, was how much do you value _your_ life?"

She stared at him for a second, and then grinned. She smiled a smile that plugged all vestiges in direct sight of it the same way Foul Ole Ron's smell peeled paint from walls. It was sickening, horrifying, and utterly fascinating in a perverted way...all that the same time. "I don't value it as much as you'd think I did."

Vetinari absently ran a finger down the blade that lay on his desk, contemplating something beyond the walls of the Oblong Office. "I have some doubts, and they could be completely unjustified, as to whether or not Sir Samuel would send a secret police force to protect me. Perhaps he doubts his own force's competence."

Terge sighed exasperatedly. "_Low-Profile_ Police," she corrected, casually draping one of her legs over an arm rest on her chair.

"Do forgive me."

There was a quick silence as the two stared at each other fiercely. Vetinari sought to command and control--Terge merely fought to maintain eye contact. The silence was so complete, so intense even in its short existence, that the Clock couldn't disturb its weight. However, Terge sighed again and glanced at the empty wine glasses on the Patrician's desk. "Now that you're safe, m'lord, d'ya mind if I return to the streets? I mean, I could take a bit more wine, if you're wondering how you can thank me..."

He was rarely spoken to like this. Hardly at all. Once upon a time, he had spent a few days in a...an invention of Leonard's with Corporal Nobby Nobbs and Sergeant Fred Colon, and those conversations had been...quite frankly...unusual, but those around him had always known who he was. There were some ways you would _never_ talk to the Patrician. And asking him to thank you was one of them. "You will find, madam, I thank no one." He rose when she did, eyes piercing. "You are not yet dismissed. Sit." She did so, and quickly too. Vetinari glared at her for a moment, and then sat back down. "What are the other mandates of the Low-Profile Police?" He articulated the name meticulously.

Cortter grimaced and dragged her chair closer to the desk. The dying candle made the Patrician's face difficult to read, a task already nearly impossible. She had just witnessed an alarmingly dangerous side of the man, and was only waiting for the perfect opportunity to vex him again. Then, perhaps, she could show him _her_ bad side. He was beginning to annoy her. "I'm not gonna say this again..."

"Capital," Vetinari smiled, genuinely pleased. The change of tone in his voice was in stark contrast to his normally impartial mood, though he was no less imposing. "I despise being told what I already know." The smile, vastly transforming his cold glare, vanished quickly, fading into memory.

"We do the work Vime's police force isn't allowed to do, on account of there's laws that won't let us."

The Patrician raised one of his impeccably pristine eyebrows. "Now that is odd; I am the law," he whispered. "I find it strange that you are part of Sir Samuel's police force, doing the things he is not allowed to do by the law that he follows so closely." He picked up the dagger on his desk and spun it lightly in his hands. It flickered in the low light, speed of rotation always seeming to be a second behind the flashes of light. "Slightly inconsistent alibi, miss."

Cortter stared in confusion, giving every impression she was an enormously stupid person listening to the Really Long Journey by Remoh. Vetinari waited patiently for her answer, already enjoying the night's entertainment thus far. It was amazing what sort of people just 'showed up' at the Oval Office and entertained him--they didn't even request payment. Cortter took a huge breath. "Well..." she began, "we work _around _the laws. But I'm rather useful so..." She nodded, as if that explained whatever it was that Vetinari hadn't asked her. But she felt an overpowering need to explain further. "We get rid of people," she growled after a second's consideration, then added, "that hurt the city." She fished something out of a pouch at her waist and flung it onto the table with a light clinking. "Get rid of people like this. Self-righteous, bureaucratic bastards who take from the poor and hoard everything."

Vetinari picked up with ring carefully and it examined it as he envisioned Leonard might while looking at de Worde's printing press. His expression changed dramatically, or came into existence, as he saw the family crest on the ring was a familiar black on black. He looked up quickly at the woman sitting across from him, straining to see beyond the mass of tangled, straw colored hair, and shabby clothes. "Odd," he breathed, slipping the knife on his desk through the ring, "that is precisely _my_ position." He spun the ring on the knife, watching the light catch the metal.

"Well, we do it secretly," Cortter interjected quickly. "People don't know about us." He noticed that she took his answer to mean she worked in the same vein as he did, not that he was a 'self-righteous, bureaucratic bastard...' That was something to take into consideration later on.

"You shall eventually find," The Patrician murmured, letting his observation pass undected, "that is your problem." He sat back in his chair and gripped the hilt of the knife that was still embedded in the back. By close examination, there looked to be several blade-shaped holes peppering the upholstery of the incredibly vertical chair. Her resolve would break, this he knew well, as all theirs did. Though, and this was a little worrisome he had to admit, his highly concentrated alcohol had not much helped his cause.

He had to wait a while.

Ten minutes later, after a staring contest to rival any cat, Terge coughed. "I want..._We've been wondering_ if you might grant us some funding, to tighten our hold, and to hire sommore people." She was nervous, he could plainly see that, but she was intent. She was not fearful, she was playing a game. Every con _wants_ money, but only the good ones expect it. And she could clearly envision him handing the cold cash over any second now.

"You may hate me for this," Vetinari sighed theatrically, "but Ankh-Morpork has no money. We are a capitalistic society running on a belief that there is a large sum of gold backing the paper we trade, but in truth, that gold was stolen a long time ago by a number of ambitious lords." He was still staring at the ring and the, now two, daggers on his desk.

Terge laughed. "Hah! What a sore lie, if I've ever heard one!"

Vetinari bridged his fingers and rested his chin lightly on his thumbs; he doubted anyone who he had performed this act for had realized that the angles between each of his fingers was precisely twenty five degrees. "Tell me," he demanded coolly, "which of my family members had to die for you to obtain this?" Confusion, authentic confusion, blazed across Terge's face. With a well exposed grimace, Vetinari pulled a concealed necklace from under his Patrician's robes and let it shimmer briefly in the low light. It was the same black on black crest.

"I dinna know!" Terge mumbled, sneering. "How'm I supposed to keep track of all the bastards?" He slipped the pendant beneath his robes again as she glared at him. "The bloody assassins don't care about their fucking lineage!" She thought a moment. "How'd a guy like you end up having an assassin as a cousin?"

The Patrician closed his eyes and breathed deeply, patience returning to him. When he reopened his eyes, they were still, all signs of fearsome fire vanished. "I would very much like to know that myself." His fingers returned to their well measured position as a cunning smile crept slowly across his face. "However, you shall find that many of the Lords of Ankh-Morpork, along with our allies, and enemies, send their sons to the Guild of Assassins to be educated. I regretfully must inform you that a great deal of assassins think of nothing else _but_ lineage." He let that stew in his companion's mind for a minute before continuing. "So why are you really here?" Despite his glowing smile--his teeth were the brightest part of the room--his eyes could have murdered someone independently. He very slowly, and exceedingly deliberately, slipped the black ring over his right index finger.

The haunting grin returned. If the contrasts of the room, the blackest shadows and the remainder of the flame were considered, Vetinari could not have been more opposite Terge Cortter. He was an astute man of culture, of control, of absolute power and precision. An she? She was a street thug, a wine-quaffing, insufferably maniacal beast. "Nothin' out of the ordinary, my lord. I just want you to cooperate."

His look was deadly serious as he replied. "I am not, particularly, in the mood."

In a blur of movement, enhanced by the low light, Terge rolled across the desk, slammed a fist into Vetinari's unprotected sternum. She heard him gasp, dragged him, his body resistless, to the floor. She had moved improbably fast, the explosion of energy had been completely unpredicted. She landed in a crouched position at his side, gold dagger at his temple. The Patrician, from his somewhat uncomfortable position on the floor, flashed an insidious smirk and readjusted his hold on the knife at her throat. He had not appeared to move at all.

"It seems," he whispered, bemusement lighting on his voice, "we have reached a stalemate." He was perfectly calm. Terge's eyes flashed and for a moment it looked as though she would not accept the fact. The gold blade, curiously expensive for someone dressed so shabbily, quivered in her tight fist. Vetinari sprang to his feet when he sensed the first shroud of doubt settle in her mind, and caught the back of her hand as she lowered her knife into a thrust. "Gold," he noticed, eyes reflecting the flickering candle eerily, "wise choice. Hard to corrode, virtually indestructible, and produces the cleanest cuts." Vetinari raised an eyebrow as she resisted his overpowering grip on her hand. "Must be worth more than its weight to you."

Terge glared at him. "Bugger off." She twisted in his hold and produced another gold dagger. "I underestimated you, Patrician," she admitted, jabbing her new blade at the center of his chest. Vetinari side-stepped the attack, dropped the knife he was holding, and caught her other hand. He pushed her to the other side of his desk uninterestedly. With a menacing sneer, Terge sheathed both daggers in invisible scabbards.

Vetinari stared off into the darkness of his office for a moment, forehead creasing momentarily, and then flipped his dropped blade up with a tap of his foot. He caught it absently and returned it to its hidden resting place. He fingered the new ring, and looked over to where Terge was fuming. "Many people do."

"Whatever." She slumped back into the chair and tapped a complex rhythm into its arm. It was amazing she was able to slouch so completely in a chair designed solely to discourage bad posture in a most uncomfortable way. "I want Archer for the job, Patrician," she explained, words syncopated with her fingers' cadence. Terge mirrored his face as she saw his eyebrow rise condescendingly. "For a job well done. The L.P.P. keeps you safe, the streets free of pests, and all we ask in return is some funding."

The Patrician, for he was no longer Vetinari but the cold man who easily dealt death sentences at a moments' thought, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "_Archer_?" He turned to look at her, his eyes boring holes through her head, searing her mind with all the things they saw she hadn't told him. The triumphant gleam to his eyes she saw was more than irritating. It was maddening. "What happens if I won't pay the bounty of my life to a non-existent organization? Two thousand dollars is quite a lot to request."

Terge's eyes closed in frustration, and she clenched her hands into tight fists. "Bounty or no," she hissed, barely containing her rage and impatience, "you have gravely misjudged my ability to dispose of you." When she saw the serenity in his face, the almost innocent look he gave her, she slammed her fist down on his desk. "I've killed far worse than a ruler who knows a few dirty tricks and a great lot of acting."

"Perhaps," he murmured, running a tapered finger over a dust-less book shelf. "You need my signature on any payment you wish to receive and I shall be powerless to give it to you once I'm dead."

She retorted quickly. "You could still tell your Exchequer to give it to me--I've heard the dead can talk."

It was too fast a reply, and Vetinari was easily able to exploit it. Her nerves, so smooth and collected, were beginning to shred. He could nearly taste her defeat. "They talk," he said quietly, eyes intent on her drifting ones, "only to those who listen." He tilted his head slightly, considering her from a different angle. "The fact still remains that there isn't any money. Just a belief."

"You already tried to get that lie by me before," Cortter snapped, annoyed. "You can't fool me."

That was a hard statement to consider, especially since she seemed so set on believing a lie. What was it that Colon, or was it Vimes, had said? 'Let sleeping dogs lie, my lord.' Yes. But normally a sleeping dog would sleep regardless of what was happening around it...even if it was supposed to wake up. He shrugged. "So, again," he whispered, barely moving his lips at all, "I will return to a question you have rather pointedly left unanswered: Why did you come here?"

He couldn't help but notice the surprise that crossed her face when he asked the question. It was a look of bewilderment, the sort of look that might happen across your face when you find yourself being attacked by a giant Siamese crab. The first question that would, undoubtedly, cross your mind would not be "Does this sort of thing even exist?!?" but would, instead, be "God damn! Look at all those legs!" Since Vetinari's legs were hidden beneath his desk, one could only conclude that the thought that entered Cortter's mind was of the first vein. "I followed him," Terge growled, pointing at the discarded body of Mr. Rodez. "Curious was all. I mean," she explained, in case Vetinari was having second thoughts about this second alibi. He was, in fact, having second thoughts about the first alibi. "He was scaling the side of the Palace on a full moon. I saw him using the drainpipe and figured, if he can do it, I can too." She gave him a nasty glare. "Didn't know _you'd_ be here."

Vetinari smiled stiffly. "I have that unfortunate habit of inhabiting this office." He narrowed his eyes and tapped his chin thoughtfully, watching Terge scrupulously. "Might I see the back of your left elbow?" he asked, with all seeming spontaneity.

Cortter recoiled. "No!"

"Why?" he inquired pleasantly. She hesitated. "Of course, if there is some embarrassingly hideous tattoo in the shape of a heart with 'WUM' across the center of it…"

"What?!?...I don't...how'd you...There's not…" Cortter replied automatically, and then stopped. "Just a knife scar I got when I was younger." She had an unwarranted amount of bitterness in her words.

Vetinari nodded once. "That's exactly what I thought." He smirked at the unkind look she offered. "We've met once before."

Terge stopped midway through her sneer. "You what?" she asked, confused. She'd never seen him before in her life, but already he hated him more than some of the people she'd known since birth. There was something incredibly painful about they way he seemed to know everything about her without asking it. He knew all her secrets--especially those that she'd promised herself never to remember again.

"Oh, yes," the Patrician sniffed. "It was nearly twenty years ago, on a high mountain moor…" His voice drifted off into the darkness as he watched her face transform from a look of confusion to loathing. "There was a carriage travelling at break-neck speed across a moon-lit fen. Inside were a little girl and her parents. They were merrily talking, laughing…" Terge was fuming now. "And suddenly," Vetinari paused, eyes locked on the darkness, "they died."


	3. The Matador

_Hello, and thank you one and all for you kind and informative reviews. I'm finding that it's quite difficult to write a fan fiction based on a series I hardly know, but I am reading Pratchett's work as fast as I can. I hope this isn't a disappointment to any of you._

_My sincere thanks to Big Cat. _

_Again: these are Mr. Pratchett's characters (save Terge). I am merely borrowing them for the time being. No harm shall come to his creations. I hope._

_JabberwockySlayer_

**Chapter Three**: The Matador

"This is, of course, the tragic legend of the der Re family." Vetinari's eyes lit with a pale light as he saw Terge blanch at the name. "An entire family destroyed in one unlucky bandit attack, completely erased from the world, except for in books and memories." He smiled inwardly. But what history book couldn't be rewritten? It was surprising what people remembered with a little bit of persuasion.

Terge fumbled with the arm rest of her chair, eyes never staying in the same place for long. "Why...why are you talking about them?" she asked slowly, feigning innocence. She was, all in all, quite bad at it. "I don't need to be told horror stories about...that."

The Patrician sighed, the first outward sign of impatience to escape him. "Because, Miss der Re, that old, ancient, impeccably pure blood line suddenly exists again. Imagine the Council of Lords' joy."

Her answer was small. Small and defeated. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I suppose you might need a refresher," Vetinari admitted. "After all, it happened nearly twenty years ago...neither of us was quite as old then, especially you." He gazed at the ring on his index finger a moment. "What _do_ you remember?"

Miss der Re's eyebrows collided as she concentrated. "Darkness. Just darkness."

"It was dark out--something the legend has wrong. There was no full moon, and there were no bandits." Miss der Re had found a particularly interesting section of carpet and was glaring at it furiously. Vetinari paused, considering something for a second, and then dipped his quill in the open ink well on his desk and wrote a few sentences in the open book before him. "You know," Vetinari noted in an off hand sort of way as he took a moment to examine the sentence he'd just composed, "it's amazing what is remembered and what is forgotten with a little encouragement. Often memories put false images and delete true ones. Life is distorted by the mind." He made a correction and glanced up to where der Re sat frozen with absolute hatred. He gave her a moment's consideration and then wrote another paragraph in the silence of the unmetered Clock, stopping frequently to dwell on the last sentence, or to dip his quill in its inkwell.

He let her fester in her silent rage. He knew well enough that words were useless in matters of making someone...well...pissed as a cat in a sack. Their own imagination could induce claustrophobia better than anything else. If the cat had actually paused a moment while inside an, albeit, uncomfortably close sack, it would find it should be rather grateful the dimensions were considerably larger than, say, a tea cosy.

Vetinari finished his paragraph, slipped the quill into the open inkwell, and leaned back in his chair. "Do you even know where he was going, your father, or why you had been brought along? He travelled frequently, I assume, but that was the first trip that he had ever brought you, and your mother, along with him." He ran an ink-stained forefinger down his black beard. "That missing link, Miss der Re, will explain more than it won't."

"I don't need to know what it is," she hissed, seething. Her fists were tight, knuckles growing white. She slammed her fist down on the desk between them, making ink drops hop out of the well and splatter on the dark wood. The echo resonated embarrassingly in the silence. A muscle twitched in Vetinari's jaw. Terge removed her grubby fist slowly and took an unsteady breath. "No doubt you have it in mind to tell me regardless."

She was answered by a curt nod. "I do indeed know it all." Precise fingers drummed a complicated rhythm into desk for a minute as intense blue eyes pinned her to her chair. "Do you know who they were? Who they _really_ were?"

There were tears now running down der Re's face, cutting salty paths through, what was revealed as, several layers of dirt. She looked as amazed to feel them as Vetinari did to see them. He sneered at her red eyes, disgusted. "What more do you want from me?" she screamed, an oddly raspy noise. The noise resonated dully off the books in the midnight office. "Want me to tell you what it was like to watch your parents die, murdered by a shadow you couldn't see?" She quivered, icy fingers running down her spine. "All those gory details interest you? Have you ever seen someone die, surprise the last thing they show on their faces before a stiletto pops into their back?"

The Patrician stared at his fingernails a while before answering. "I've seen at least two people die that way." He looked up, lips pursed tensely. "Not so long ago," he began, staring into the infinity of the multi-universe, "a Lord was given an offer he couldn't refuse." Der Re paused in her anger, confused by the sudden story. "Lord der Re accumulated enemies like old women do cats. One such enemy, the smartest of the lot, offered der Re, at blade point I might add, one of two choices: death or an alliance between the two men. If man has a fault, it is a fear of Death. He took the second option, and was enveloped by a plot." Der Re's eyes narrowed. "And he began to believe the cause he served. He believed a lie out of fear," Vetinari scoffed, faint sneer appearing alongside his nose. "His enemies multiplied in number because he had betrayed his old friends, and now he dreamed of a free Ankh-Morpork, free of rulers, or kings, tyrants, Lords, bureaucracy...He dreamed of equality for everyone, where everyone had what they needed. A man as cowardly and self-less as that has few friends.

"He dreamed too big, and dreamers like that are killed." There was a pause as Vetinari took the time to stare pointedly at der Re. She cringed under his intense blue eyes. "One midsummer's night, Lord der Re passed with his family through the mountains just Hubward from here." Vetinari had been watching the young der Re's reaction carefully. "You see, he was travelling to a top secret separatist's meeting, and he knew an attempt would be made on his life--but who would kill a Lord in cold blood, travelling with his family?"

Miss der Re shuddered. "You would. You killed them."

"It was necessary, my lady," Vetinari whispered, looking at her over the tips of his joined fingers. "He was a fool, an impressionable fool, and fools like that with dangerous ideas never die well..."

He wasn't expecting to be interrupted, but Terge cut in during one of those pauses he used as punctuation. "Who does?" she demanded, baring her teeth. She stood suddenly, as if burned. "Who among us dies well?" She saw Vetinari's eyes locked on her vacated chair, and gently eased herself back down. "You killed them." She spoke as though the news of their deaths had just reached her. A deep wound, covered long ago by layers of scar tissue, had been reopened and now throbbed uncontrollably. "You killed them and left me..."

Vetinari grimaced, an action barely noticeable itself, as he waved his hand, dismissing the matter. "Indeed. I must say I was not expecting to find an entire family in that coach, but my orders had been specific, and I had been well paid." Miss der Re's mouth opened involuntarily and Vetinari raised his eyebrow, unimpressed. "'Bring the Mynah Cartah, leave no witnesses.' Lord der Re, ever the revolutionary, would guard that document with his life--this I knew, and I had planned accordingly..."

And, again, his expertly used pause had been exploited. "You're an assassin!"

He fought so hard not to roll his eyes. "Acute observation."

Death's eyes looked out of Terge's for a second. That blue aura was oddly fascinating. "I will kill you," she said simply. Factually, even.

Vetinari had never heard someone talk about death with such ease, without a second thought. Emotion vanished from his face as he replied, eyes and voice hard. "Unlikely." Though he found assassination attempts amusing, brief moments of recreation separating monotonous periods of paperwork, he heartily disliked speaking about assassinations, especially his. Either do, or do not, someone had told him a long time ago. _There is no try_. At the time, he hadn't taken the advice seriously--frankly, the person who gave the advice was a little hard to take seriously himself--but as Vetinari accumulated years and wisdom, the words of warning had proved true.

"You think you're unbeatable..." der Re jaded, wrinkling her nose as if suddenly smelling something detestable.

"So it appears. The only one who does." Sarcasm was not a tool one expected the Patrician to employ, and therefore escaped through the nets of der Re's mind undetected.

Terge blinked. "Yeah..."

Vetinari nodded, clearly dissatisfied. "After watching your parents die, you decided you would seek your revenge by killing. At such a young age! Loose one, kill one. A heart for a heart, a life for a life."

"But you let me live," she shot back, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. It was very clear who was guilty, at least from her point of view. Her tears had dried in salty streaks down her cheeks; they would catch the dim candle-light occasionally, lending the apparition of fierce war-paint streaked down her face. "What did you think would become of me?" She paused, expecting Vetinari's answer. He'd been, after all, so willing to talk. What she failed to realize, was his previous outburst of words had never been witnessed before.

The Patrician's eyes were on the clock, watching, waiting for something. Der Re gave him a worried glance and looked over her shoulder to where the imposing grandfather clock ticked merrily to itself, oblivious of its inner, untimely rhythm. When she looked at the Patrician again, he was running his fingers down the edge of his desk, murmuring soundless words to himself.

And, so faintly that der Re wasn't quite sure if her mind had been playing trick on her, a gentle tapping erupted from one of the two doors leading out of the Oblong Office. There was a pause, though the Clock continued unaware of the sudden increase of tension in the room, in which Vetinari and der Re stared at each other, silently challenging, and soft knocking again.

"What's that?" der Re hissed, half-way out of her chair.

"That would be Drumknott," her counterpart replied, dismissing the fact as though it had been a commonly known. He let his eyes leak innocence, infuriating innocence.

Terge growled. "You told your _bodyguard_ that someone was here?"

"My _secretary_, if you would be so kind."

She spat on the floor. "I expected more." With the third set of tapping, she grabbed the nearly extinguished candle and threw it to the floor. It bounced, the oil base shattering and spraying oil in an amoeba-like circle, and came to rest on the thick carpet. The threads could be heard crackling under the sudden change of temperature. They looked at the birth of a bonfire, then at each other, and back at the increasing flames. Light began to spill from the flames. Der Re stood frozen a second longer, and then vaulted out of her chair and disappeared through the door the knocking wasn't coming from.

Vetinari gazed at the fire, lost in its twisting beauty. He was pulled back to reality by a fourth round of 'shave and a haircut'. "Now is not a good time, Drumknott," he whispered, knowing the man on the other side of the door could hear. He surveyed the scene again, cold eyes mocked by the burning fire. The candle oil, little droplets spread around a more concentrated pool, had all caught fire, giving way to a rather interesting central fire surrounded by a collection of offspring ranging in size. The little fires danced around the large one as heathen tribes had once danced around their own sacrificial fire. The carpet was also burning, waging a competition between the candle-oil fires.

"When would be a better one, my lord?" Another pause as Drumknott failed to discern an intelligible answer. "I seem to recall," he ventured hesitantly a moment later, "that you were rather adamant about scheduling in an appointment with me at three in the morning..."

"I was indeed," Vetinari agreed, watching the flames test the combustible aptitude of the bookcases lining the room. He closed the book he'd been writing in and placed it in a drawer in his desk.

From the other side of the door, Drumknott coughed. "One would wonder why, don't you think, my lord? Or did you have anything in mind?"

There was a tone, or the ghost of a tone, that caught Vetinari off guard. "No, Drumknott. Nothing that would compromise our incredibly professional relationship." He nodded to himself, reached under the top of his desk, and pulled out thick belt laced with six blades or various length and thickness. He ran a finger down one of them. "That appointment," Vetinari continued as he began to unbutton the invisible clasps at the neck of his black satin robes, "was merely to make sure you call the Fire Brigade to douse the flames in here."

"Are you in _danger_, my lord?"

"At the moment, just warm," Vetinari confided in his scribe. His robes parted to reveal another layer of black clothing, this one tailored and slimmer. He stepped out of the parted robes, folded them neatly, and stowed them in the compartment he had pulled his belt from. Habit seemed to take over as he threw half of the belt over his shoulder, caught it as it swung under the other one, and cinched two halves together. The end resulted in an almost swashbuckling appearance with six daggers lined neatly along his chest, ready for foul deeds.

"My lord," Drumknott mumbled, "we don't have a Fire Brigade."

Vetinari glanced at the door, regarding it impassively. "No?" Bemusement could almost be heard in his voice. "Ah. Remind me to look into adding that to Sir Samuel's mandate in the morning, will you?" There was a murmur of agreement. "Capital. In the meantime, kindly alert the household staff to the fire that seems to have escaped its grill and is now spreading rather quickly across that nice rug the Klatchian ambassador gave me. Good heavens, I didn't know they burnt so well."

"You don't have a fire place in there," Drumknott pointed out obstinately, and then quickly said, "yes, sir!"

"Very good." Vetinari smiled to himself and left the Oblong Office, confident he would be able to return to the same, if not slightly chard, office. He followed the invisible destruction in der Re's wake. It was like walking behind Lord Sherman's troops during his long-forgotten campaign during the last war with Uberwald.

In the darkness of the Witching Hours, Vetinari disappeared into the dimensions between imagination and invisibility, moving at the speed of dark through the shadowy corridors. There was an entire palace to hold this fox hunt in, and an entire night to do it with.

He caught up to the sound of her slowly shifting feet in the hallway that was Leonard of Quirm's only gateway to the real world. She was having a difficult time manoeuvring through the series of hidden traps, but she was smart enough to venture cautiously in the dark--for darkness is the cradle of imagination, dreams, and nightmares--wary of all nasty things that were always potentially lying in wait. But she was, to Vetinari's quiet amusement, still counted among the living. He paused in his silent tracking, amending his previous thought. _Physically_ living. He suspected her should had been AWOL for many years now.

It would have been so easy to slip into the memorized foot patterns, come upon her silently, and correct the only mistake of his life. Too easy. But crowds do not like quick kills. They want to be entertained, to see action. They want surprises, shocking upsets. That is how to amuse a crowd. So, Vetinari, knowing that people are always watching, regardless of a situation, swallowed simplicity and resorted to trailing his quarry.

oo000oo

_Yes. I would like to take this moment to thank one and all for their kind reviews. I regret to say that I'm rather more busy than I wished to be, what with learning an impossible language and all, and I am unsure of when I shall be able to update again._

_That being said, I am currently working on Chapter Four. Any suggestions would be heartily welcome, as my muse (if I ever had one) has decided to take an extended vacation. Whereabouts are currently _Unknown.

_Cheers to one and all._

_JabberwockSlayer_


	4. The Toro

_Thanks to one and all who's reviewed thus far. I've tried to take your advice as best I can, but with such _copious_ amounts of good advice bombarding me (mild sarcasm) it's been hard. ANYway. This chapter contains a few events some (many) of you may not (won't) like. _

_I shall sit back at rake the critical reviews in…_

_--JabberwockySlayer_

The corridor darkened, a feat impressive considering the blackness that had already enveloped the world, into something between infinity and void and behind the cautious Terge der Re, Vetrinari slunk like a shade in the night, a mere shadow.

Quite unexpectedly, the darkness vanished with a tinkling of glass and a faint 'umph' as der Re accidentally smashed through a window and out into the world of roof-tops. The glass, Vetinari noticed as he picked a shard up with a gloved hand, had been painted black. He grinned, recalling a conversation he had had with the inventor many years ago about Hope. How cruel a trap had been laid.

The world, framed by the jagged silhouetted of what remained of the black-stained glass wall, was lit with wonderful clarity by the moon and an entire battalion of stars. The blue light cascaded across the land, filling the view with unearthly, yet calming, images of faintly-blue, snow-covered roofs stretching as far as the eye had any desire to see. Biting air swirled through the opening, feeling very comparable to an ice-cube down a shirt on a summer day.

Vetinari lowered his eyes to shield them from the uncomfortable, dry air, saw an oddly deformed, sporadic pattern in the otherwise pristine snow covering the Palace roof below him, and followed it down the steep slope to where he saw der Re lying draped, and unmoving, over what appeared to be Constable Downspout. The gargoyle looked positively surprised, but the pigeon he'd been attempting to lure into his mouth looked even more so. Feathers scattered in a gravity-opposing cloud for a few seconds. He glazed his eyes for a second, focusing on movement rather than detail--if she hadn't survived the fall, why follow? He didn't need _his_ footprints in the snow to be used to incriminate him.

It took a few moments for Terge to regain her breath, but as she hauled herself off her rocky saviour, Vetinari affixed a coiled rope at his waist to the awning in the roof just above him. Knot secure, he let himself slide down the rope, through the shadows, to the roof Terge had barely escaped plummeting off. She saw him make his way down the slick slope with the all-too-perfect caution of a man who is pretending he is weaker than he actually is, and grinned predatorily when he slipped minutely on the slippery wood. "Have you come to meet your death?" she hissed, flaunting two more gold daggers in the moonlight.

Vetinari paused, on hand on his chest the other checking the tension in his belaying rope. He sighed. "Not mine, per say, but there is a chance I shall meet him today." He watched her work his words out and removed his hand from the rope to stroke his beard. He was staring at the gold daggers intently.

"I think you _want_ to die!" she spat as a retort. Behind her, unheeded, Constable Downspout watched the exchange with mild interest. He looked particularly enraged, as much as his frozen features would allow, that Terge's arrival had caused his dinner, and all potential other dinners, to vanish. "You could have ordered your watch to come and kill me," from the tone in her voice it seemed like she'd had several unpleasant encounters with Ankh-Morpork's police, "but you come to do it yourself! And you've dressed up too!" She was panting, breath visible in the crisp air. She flung a knife at him half-heartedly.

It was no surprise he caught it. "Has no one ever told you," Vetinari asked, words flowing listlessly, "_Si non confectus, non reficiat_?" He turned the gold dagger through his fingers, quiet smile growing on the corner of his mouth. "The opposite is true as well, of course."

She ignored the snide comment. "I can only lead to your death!"

There was nothing he could do to prevent the hesitant smile to grow larger. "Lady der Re," Vetinari whispered across the night patiently, "there are a great many things that could only lead to my Death, most notable of these being my birth."

Terge fumed.

Vetinari voiced what appeared to be a correct conclusion drawn after much deliberation. "The significance behind these seemingly unabating gold blades impresses me, though I doubt you even bothered to think about it before acquiring them." Der Re watched in confusion as he ran a fingernail down the surface of the knife. "Foil," he murmured, satisfied, "and underneath, merely common steel."

Steam was now visibly pouring off her entire body. "I will kill you," she growled, unsheathing yet fingers curling around the remaining knife. She took a half-step towards him, slid fractionally on the wood, and decided against engaging him. He was the one with the rope, after all.

"May I remind you that is the second time you have made such a threat," Vetinari replied very diplomatically, "and yet here I am." He slipped the gold covered dagger into the folds of his midnight suit.

"You…" Terge fetched for words, but failed to come up with any that filled the requirements. She had to settle with finishing, "_Bastard_."

The insult was not warmly received. Vetinari's eyes flashed as he shot back a snapped response. "Though I may have inhumed your father, I did not desecrate his image--intentionally. I assumed you would treat the memory of my father with the same respect."

"Fucking son of a…flea-bitten cur." Der Re seemed pleased with the momentary reaction she was able to get out of him. He'd seemed so transcendental, but she'd assured herself he was merely human.

Vetinari paused again, crowfeet accidentally appearing at the edges of his eyes. "Agreed." Before Terge was able to continue, he added, "Though, if I'm not mistaken, your mother was none too agreeable before she died too…"

The shapes _I will kill you_ formed on Terge's lips, but they were left voiceless. She apparently was too enraged to even speak. Her eyes burned with that fierce fire that is so often indistinguishable between the insane and the seriously discerning. She staggered for a moment, finding stability in Downspout's head, until she regained her semi-rational thinking. From the distance between them, her mumbling voice was nearly impossible to distinguish from the wind. "I fail to see how my father's mistake could possibly justify condemning me to the life you did."

Vetinari raised an eyebrow sceptically. "So now it is my fault?" he murmured, fiddling with some device at his waist. There was a 'zing' and the rope lengthened a meter or so. "How decidedly _backwards_."

"What did you think I would do after I watched my parents die? Do you think I would merrily return to the civilized world without a second thought?"

There was no moment when Vetinari was on the defensive during Terge's attack, simply because he had very little experience in dealing with being on the other side of an intensive interrogation. The lack of two sides quickly solved itself by reversing the would-be roles. "Such hypocrisy," he sighed, almost wistfully. "To so emphatically believe you are not in the wrong, and yet accomplish such unspeakable horrors--do you see nothing strangely incongruous with that?"

Der Re attempted to regain the upper hand--an unwise move in the current company. "Are you ever one hundred percent sure about what you do?"

"Oh yes."

"You're dictator of the greatest city on earth," she hissed. "Obviously there's got to be something that you're not sure of with all the decisions you've got to make."

He shook his head slightly, arms crossing. "While we can be compared," he said, adding, "by a blind, deaf, and mute man, the important distinguishing feature between us is I am no serial killer--I do not make my living stealing life."

"And you're saying I do?"

"How nice of you to catch my drift."

Her patience seemed to suddenly come to an end. There was a rather surprising, metaphorical, explosion on the rooftop of the Palace as Terge took a deep breath and exhaled with a charged expulsion of fury. "Why don't you _do_ something? You stand there like you are having a pleasant conversation, unaware we're on the bloody _roof_ of your f-ing castle. How can you be so…" she tried to find a suitable adjective to describe him in a hurry--finding a noun had been hard enough--and failed. "Do something!" she yelled, voice resonating dully across the silent metropolis.

Vetinari smiled serenely.

Der Re also smiled, but it was more one of those smiles that consists of a snarl, a curled lip, and bore teeth. It had, to say the least, a very different feel to it.

Snow swirled around the city, completely unaware of the localized 'cold war' occurring far above the sparse streets.

"Why won't you just--"

"I have the ability to re-write history, Miss der Re." Vetinari spoke quickly, fixing a calculating stare on his quarry. "I can make it so the world will know of your father's noble plans, his accidental death at the hand of a…" The Patrician hesitated, crooked smirk flashing briefly in the moonlight. "…_bastard_. You can be reinstated in the house of Lords and your family will be given back its lands.

Terge's smile deepened. "I will not be bought off, you coward," she laughed, her fingers tapping a delicate rhythm into her opposite forearm

Vetinari breathed deeply, obviously concentrating. Had one been able to venture into the complex labyrinth that was his mind one would have seen how his anger, his sanity, his bemusement at the rest of his race, his sadness…all intertwined and woven into an engine designed to give him power, patience, knowledge, insight…He knew what would come next, he knew her taunts would escalate into fists, into the innumerable knives she had so skilfully concealed, into a hand-to-hand combat he knew he would win. But at what cost would he win? Would he end up walking with another cane, or not walking at all? And if he were to kill her in the fight she so obviously wanted, as he knew he would have to if he were to face her, he would be merely acceding to her demands, to her wishes.

"In my office, on the fourth bookshelf from the left of the draped window you were hiding in earlier in the evening, is a red book bearing no label," he finally whispered, pulling his conscious thoughts out of the depths of his unconscious ones. He watched Terge's reaction with due caution. "There, behind the book, will be the titles of various lands held, at one point, by now ex-noble surnames. You will find your father's title there." He took a step forward and Terge found herself too surprised by his words to restrain her instincts. The last gold blade left her hand so perfectly, almost by will of its own, and it severed through the Patrician's belaying rope so perfectly at just as he trusted his weight to it…Terge watched him slide, grasping, down the incline she'd been so lucky to escape, and grinned triumphantly as his flailing body spilled over the edge

A clock, somewhere in the immensity that was Ankh-Morpork chimed just as she supposed she would have heard his form collided with the cobbles so far below. He was gone. The bare wooden roof that had been exposed when he'd slipped down and over the edge was real enough, the lingering effects of adrenaline in her blood were still able to be recognized, the Assassins bell that chimed now, the last one, it was also real. After a deep, cleansing breath, Terge sidled over to the severed rope and used it to steady herself as she leaned over the gutter's edge, hoping to see a thin, black figure splayed on the cobbles below. She saw, instead, another flailing pattern in a second roof, one story below her, and followed it as it disappeared over the lip of the roof. It was done. Terge began to work her way cautiously up the icy slope of the bare roof, making sure to avoid the precarious hallway she'd exited the Palace by. Once she reached the first window came to, she slammed her fist through the glass quickly, and pulled herself through the shattered frame.


	5. The End

What Miss der Re failed to notice was that the statue that she had used to steady herself had vanished when Vetinari had. There were more pressing matters at hand than the mysterious disappearance of roof decorations. However, below the now-vacated roof, a conversation of an entirely different nature from the most recent one erupted clumsily.

Constable Downspout's fist was securely locked around what appeared to be a rather thin leg. A rather thin leg clad entirely in black. Upon further examination, the leg was attached to a rather disgruntled looking, upside down Patrician.

"'Cor!" said the gargoyle, apparently surprised at his catch. Vetinari attempted to dislodge himself from the Constable's grip with as much dignity as possible but a rock-hard grip is hard to free oneself from, even when speaking metaphorically. His hair hung loosely, unaware gravity had been reversed. The Patrician's overall appearance was the likeness of a large, awkward, balding bat. "Ah 'oo aw'wite, 'uh?"

The patience of a gargoyle, while legendary, cannot compare to the intelligence, which is unheard of. Knowing this, Vetinari decided to play to his, and he hated the word, _saviour's_ strengths. "Besides being upside down at the moment, Constable," he grumbled, "I'm alright, yes." Sarcasm, he would quickly remember, was yet another area gargoyles are less-than proficient in.

Constable Downspout peered down at him with frozen eyes.

"If you would be so kind, I would rather enjoy returning to my status quo with gravity," Vetinari continued, finding that the force of gravity, when experienced oppositely than usual, was doing rather unpleasant things to his head.

He was met, again, with a mildly coagulating stare.

"Please turn me around," Vetinari snapped in a voice rising slightly above a whisper. His chest expanded as he drew in a silent breath, blue vein throbbing across the middle of his reddening face. If a gargoyle could have looked nervous, Downspout would have, but stone is hard of displaying any emotion other than the one it had been formed to show.

He was spun gently by the ankle in a circle.

"Downspout," he said at last, very firmly and clearly, after recovering from the sickening rotation, "I am going to be very specific here." The gargoyle nodded subtly. "Capital. Climb--with me--to the open window in the glass dome above us and put me there. Do you understand---?"

Suddenly, with a whoosh of sudden acceleration, they were tumbling upwards in a three-steps-up-one-step-back sort of pattern. The gargoyle's wings had obviously been created as an afterthought, resulting in a comically painful, in Vetinari's rather vulnerable position, picture. Downspout beat the wings in attempt to gain more momentum in the upwards climb, but the venture did little actual help. Vetinari scanned the roof-top as he slid over it, registering the tracks in the snow, and the recently smashed window--leading to Leonard's study.

When they reached the glass dome that served as the ceiling to Leonard's work room, and Constable Downspout had released his employer, Vetinari delayed the gargoyle's departure with a casual arm. "One last thing, Constable," he whispered, feeling cold for the first time. He was sure if he was to reach up and feel his ears they would snap off. "You have absolutely no recollection of seeing me, _or anyone else_, on the roof tonight." He raised an eyebrow, briefly calculating the impact of his words on the gargoyle.

"'s, 'uh."

"Excellent. And you most certainly didn't save my life, although I must thank you very much." Vetinari turned away from the confused roof-ornament and began to ease one of the panes of glass out of its moulding with a thin knife.

"'Aye dinn?"

Without facing the Constable, the Patrician shook his head. "Certainly not. Now return to whatever it was you were doing." Downspout attempted a bow that, had it been in the movies, was missing half of its frames, which went unnoticed by Vetinari's back, and sulked away.

"Sir?" Leonard gasped as Vetinari dropped into his studio from the roof. The old man looked like he was close to heart failure. "A…a little late for a visit, don't you agree?" He was sitting rigidly at his workbench, hand over his heart, eyes wide with fear.

Vetinari's narrowed his eyes, attempting to adjust them to the darkness as quickly as possible. He glanced around the room, stiletto still poised in his hand, and noted the caved in window, the sprayed glass…he could nearly smell the destruction. "You seem to be awake," he murmured, still conducting his examination of the room.

Leonard breathed deeply, relieved it was the Patrician. When the stained window glass had broke, wrenching him from a dream of carriages powered by dead animals and ways to make hundreds of replicas of a product with the push of a button, Leonard had been expecting one of the unexpected visits the Patrician sometimes paid him when the poor man's mind was too full of thoughts and had no way to release them. Instead, he had felt what could only have been a blade at his throat and hear someone, not the Patrician, growl: "It's your lucky day--I'm not going to kill you. Now just tell me how to get out of here without being hit by a mysteriously appearing rotating saw or a 16-ton block of iron that drops from the ceiling." Noiselessly, Leonard had pointed to the oaken door that was his only bridge to the real world, afraid for his life despite the previous assurances.

"It's locked," he had mumbled when his unspeakably horrible attacker had pulled away.

"Then unlock it," had been the reply, with a menacing flourish of a yellow-tinted blade.

Leonard knew his death was eminent. "But I can't. It's locked from the outside," he had sputtered, wringing his hands. He was used to the Patrician, a civil, educated man interested in his sketches and inventions. It'd been so long since he'd been threatened, indeed, since he'd had a conversation with someone other than his host. And here he was…Leonard could clearly remember why he'd been so eager to leave 'the real world,' as they called it. Loonies like this…

"What fool lives in a room locked from the outside?"

Leonard had considered this for as long as he thought safe. "Someone like me, I suppose," he had risked. Behind the shaggy mane his attacker sported, two glinting eyes narrowed. There was a 'thud' on the glass dome high above them, and Leonard's attacker vanished out through the window it had entered.

Vetinari listened indifferently as the old inventor relayed all that he had seen. When, at last, the end came, Vetinari nodded once and fished a ring of keys out of his perplexing garments. "Leonard, that will be all. Perhaps I will return later today." He crossed to the small door, slid a spidery skeleton key into the hole, and gently turned it. As the door swung open with utmost caution, the Patrician revolved on his heel to stare at the disturbed genius again. "Earlier this morning I was wondering about a device that would be able to clear streets in an emergency so that the Watch could get there with more ease…" A tight smile passed over his face as Leonard's eyes brightened.

"Apart from Sergeant Colon, you mean?"

"I was thinking about something more…practical," Vetinari admitted with a sigh. He quietly crept from the room as Leonard bent over a tattered scrap of parchment, scribbling furiously.

The corridor was cold…very cold. Looking down to his left, Vetinari saw snow had blown in through the false wall forming snowdrifts along the floor. He sneered and set off through the precarious hallway, feet returning to the memorized dance. If he was fast enough, he could make it back to the Oblong Office before der Re did…

He cautiously entered the charred office, pleased to find the raging fire was a mere memory. The smell of charred furniture was still very much present, but the current darkness he found was imperative to his plan.

Quickly, as to not lose a moment, Vetinari whisked around his office, gently sliding as many red-bound books as he could into his arms before striding over to the fourth bookshelf from the left of the large window. He replaced some of the books there with the red ones he had collected, smirking at the thought of Drumknott's face when the scribe came into give him his morning briefing--how long had the man spent alphabetizing Vetinari's library by Leonard's dot system? Too long. And, with any luck, this disorganization would be a perfect opportunity for him to test the soundness of the system. He took the displaced books and pushed them into the voids created when he'd removed the red books from the numerous shelves.

Sweeping back to his desk, he removed a thin metal case from a camouflaged compartment underneath his inkwell and opened it cautiously, slipping a finger under the lid before he opened it all the way. It fell back to reveal many glass vials containing various liquids in a variety of colours, and an ample selection of needles. The Patrician lifted the smallest vial of all carefully--it was smaller than his little finger, and thinner too--and eased the glass stopper out with great caution. Upon the label, faded and worn by disuse, the words _Oxctane x Asprella venom 60M_. He dipped Terge's thin gold stiletto into the opening, dousing the tip in the iridescent liquid, laid the bevenomed instrument on his desk, recorked the phial, and slid it back into the case. The box was slid back into is place under the inkwell, the gold dagger was eased off the desk, and Vetinari disappeared into obscurity.

Seconds later, and right one cue, der Re shattered the glass on the large window. She stumbled about in the darkness, less poised than the audacious killer she had appeared upon first sight, seeking the bookcase blindly. She was too consumed by her task to feel any apprehension about being in Vetinari's _silent_ office. Vetinari heard her curse under her breath. "Be just bloody like his sorry ego to have a whole _bookshelf_ of bleary _red_ books," she muttered as she began to check behind each an every one. He was nearly behind her at this point, completely absent from her obsessed head. What a mixture of hope and greed could do to the mind!

Terge jumped to her feet as Vetinari gripped her shoulder, but her paralysing surprise did just that--paralysed her in sudden adrenalin. She fell to her knees roughly with an 'umph' of expelled air when Vetinari slammed the long knife into her back, between her ribs, too confused to utter so much as a grunt. She knelt there, a perfect, silent statue, attempting to drag air into her burning lungs.

Very delicately, Vetinari bent over her shoulder, mouth mere centimetres from her ear. "There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness, Miss der Re. Remember that when I say," she could _hear_ his smile in her ear, "you are, in all that you tried to do this night, forgiven." She couldn't turn to watch him leave her side, she couldn't open her mouth to ask him what he meant, to scream at him, to curse his decedents and family for all time...All her muscles had frozen, like whatever _rigor mortis_ was called before death. The pain, slowly ebbing away from the epicentre in her lungs, intensified with each breath she sought to draw, each laborious movement she tried, and failed, to make.

A pale, flickering light exploded behind her at the sound of a match head on sandpaper. A chair creaked against the chard floor. A faint, but maddening, scratching of a quill joined the omniscient presence of the Clock. He seemed to have forgotten she was there.

Der Re grimaced through the pain, determined not to yell, and also not sure if she had the power to do so. She puzzled over the numbness, the unpleasant crawling, that crept along in the wake of the agony. A steadily growing pool of her blood had saturated the knees of her filthy trousers, swirls of red among the burgundy revealing more was being added constantly. Time seemed to slow to a sickeningly sluggish rate. The roaring in her ears…she couldn't hear the Clock.

She began to see black.

With all the willpower she could summon, Terge jerked her head around, attempting to see Vetinari, to see what he was doing, if he really _had_ forgotten she was there. Her eyes landed, instead, upon the late Assassin she'd killed only an hour ago. She stared at the deep, dark knife wound in his back, then felt the pain in hers.

As Terge der Re's breath became increasingly ragged, a single tear began its lonely journey down her sooty face, cutting its own path through the muck as its brothers had done earlier.

Vetinari watched as der Re steadily sagged under the weight of her father's knife, quill in his had and open book on the desktop. He wore no emotion on his pale face, no compassion, no regret, anger, disgust, nor interest when she'd stared at Rodez' body. And when she'd finally collapsed, after nearly an hour of delaying the inevitable, he merely returned to writing, his Patrician's robes, his facade, restored.

The Clock struck five and the city woke up.

accredited to Josh Billings


End file.
